Turkey

Just days after Turkey's defense minister said that its new, controversial air defense system would not be integrated with NATO's, the president's spokesman openly contradicted him.

"As one of the most important countries in NATO's security line, we will definitely ensure this integration and harmony," said Ibrahim Kalin, spokesman for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Kalin did not address the other recent plot twist in this long-running saga -- that Ankara's decision on whether to continue as planned with a Chinese system, or instead switch to a Western one, would be based on how the bidding countries mark the upcoming 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide.

But his statement does -- again -- make it appear likely that Ankara will eventually reverse course and decide to go with a Western, NATO-compatible system. NATO officials have repeatedly argued that they could not integrate a Chinese system into their own for security purposes, and failing to integrate NATO's system would be a big handicap for Turkey. By not integrating with NATO "Turkey will lose half of its radar capabilities,” one unnamed defense analyst told Hurriyet Daily News.

Turkey analyst Aaron Stein notes that Defense Minister Ismet Yilmaz, whose remarks initially set all this off, may not know what he's talking about, and in any case the decision is not going to be made in the defense industry but in the presidential palace.

Amidst an angry backlash from Armenian-Americans, Starbucks has removed from cafés around Los Angeles artwork depicting women in Armenian national dress under Turkish flags.

The coffee chain was apparently attempting to cater to LA’s large ethnic Armenian community , but anyone with a smattering of an understanding of Armenian-Turkish relations — or of Google searches — could see how displaying such a poster could go awfully wrong; especially ahead of the centennial commemoration of the slaughter of over a million ethnic Armenians in Turkey.

With the centennial planned for April 24, the century-old dispute about whether or not the killings amounted to genocide has reached a fever-pitch. Armenia already has withdrawn from a largely defunct reconciliation plan with Turkey.

The Armenian National Committee for America, a Diaspora group, launched a social-media campaign at #boycottstarbucks deeming the art “Tasteless!” and calling for the coffee-colossus to remove the photos and apologize.

The outpouring has prompted the company to issue an apology. In what appears to have become the company’s standard response to press-queries, a Starbucks spokesperson wrote to EurasiaNet.org that “We missed the mark here and we apologize for upsetting our customers and the community.”

The spokesperson stated that the artwork has been removed from “our Mulholland & Calabasas store in Woodland Hills” and that the company is “working to make this right" and "to ensure this image is not in any other Starbucks locations."

Similar statements appear to have been sent to RFE/RL and the Armenian-American publication Asbarez.com, according to their reports.

Turkey is reportedly linking its purchase a multi billion-dollar air-defense system to whether the bidder countries recognize the Armenian genocide.

That news, reported by a number of Turkish media, is the latest unexpected turn in the multi-year saga over the arms deal. The original bidders for the deal were companies representing the United States, Europe, China, and Russia, giving the program the air of a geopolitical litmus test. When Turkey announced that it planned to give the Chinese company the contract, it faced a barrage of pressure from its NATO allies who were concerned that linking that system with NATO air defense equipment already in Turkey could expose NATO secrets to China.

All along, Turkey has denied that there was any political subtext to its decision, saying that its choice of China was related solely to questions of price and the fact that China would hand over more of the technology to Turkey. Now, though, that appears to have changed. With the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide approaching in April, Ankara is reportedly waiting to see how the various bidders mark that event.

"Rumors in political circles in Ankara said that no decision will be made over the missile defense system winner before [April 24] since Turkey wants to first see France and the U.S.'s position on the 1915 incidents," reported the pro-government Daily Sabah. "An agreement may be made with China if the U.S. and French administrations take a 'pro-Armenian' stance."

The move by the U.S. Congress to deny secondhand warships to Turkey could portend an "arms embargo" from Washington, some military officials in Ankara are warning.

Last month, Congress approved the transfer of several naval frigates to Mexico and Taiwan, excluding Turkey -- which had been slated as one of the original recipients -- over concerns about its policies toward Israel and Cyrpus.

While the ships would have been of use to Turkey only as the source for spare parts, the move nevertheless has raised alarm in Ankara, according to Hurriyet Daily News.

“These are almost useless vessels of no strategic importance for the Turkish Navy,” one senior defense official in Ankara told the newspaper. “The Americans know that the ships would not be great naval assets for Turkey. We think the decision not to transfer the ships to Turkey may be reflecting the likelihood of a broader embargo in the future.”

Another official, also speaking anonymously, suggested that the reprisal could go the other way:

A defense procurement official in Ankara said any further U.S. move “that may look like an embargo due to political rifts” would trigger reaction and risk U.S. defense business in Turkey.

“The unfriendly U.S. move came at a time when our U.S. [and European] allies are trying to convince us that going for a Chinese solution in our air defense program is not a good idea. The timing of the frigate decision is puzzling. The Americans know very well which contracts potentially involving U.S. defense business in Turkey could be jeopardized and how much harm that may make to U.S. industry,” said the official.

Tajikistan has cast doubt over its willingness to continue hosting a network of leading charter schools inspired by U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gülen.

This week Education Minister Nuriddin Saidov suggested that the Tajik government is planning to review the schools’ licenses, which are currently held by a company called Shalola. The schools – often known as “Gülen schools” or “Turkish schools” – adhere to the educational principles of Gülen’s transnational religious movement, which has been praised for its modern interpretation of Islam but also accused of bearing resemblance to a cult.

“The activities of Turkish schools in Tajikistan should be transformed; they need to work on a charitable basis. This is my position. Now we are working on this issue,” Saidov told journalists January 5.

While the schools (numbering 10, according to one count) in Tajikistan were initially free to attend, they now cost $1,000 dollars per year, according to RFE/RL’s Tajik service.

RFE/RL says the schools’ domestic critics tend to associate them with “Pan-Turkism,” while supporters argue that they offer an education far superior to that at Tajikistan’s impoverished state schools, which are among the worst in the former Soviet Union. Instruction is in English, Russian and Turkish. Tajik social media users claim that many officials place their children in the secular Gülen schools.

It is not clear what precisely Shalola and its schools have done to offend Tajikistan’s aid-dependent and graft-prone government.

The USS Halyburton, a guided missile frigate that the U.S. Congress refused to give to Turkey. (photo: U.S. Navy)

The U.S. Congress has approved the handover of some leftover naval vessels to allies, pointedly excluding Turkey from the list of recipients.

In late December, the U.S. finally approved the long-delayed handover of six naval frigates to Mexico and Taiwan. But the bill passed Congress only after Turkey (along with Pakistan and Thailand) were eliminated as potential recipients, for a variety of political reasons.

In the 2012 version of the "Naval Transfer Act," Turkey was to receive two Oliver Hazard Perry class guided missile frigates, the USS Halyburton and the USS Thach, which are being decommissioned by the U.S. Navy.

But the inclusion of Turkey proved controversial, as members of Congress pointed out Turkey's increasingly hostile stance toward Israel and its threats against natural gas exploration by American companies near Cyprus. "I believe we should hold off on sending powerful warships to Turkey and encourage the government in Ankara to take a less belligerent approach to their neighbors," said Representative Eliot Engel during that debate.

An exiled Tajik opposition leader who heads a group Dushanbe classifies as “extremist” has reportedly been detained in Turkey.

Umarali Quvvatov’s wife told RFE/RL’s Tajik service December 20 of a raid on the family’s Istanbul home the day before. She said his passport and computers were confiscated and a group of guests was also detained. Turkish officials have not commented.

Quvvatov is a former oil trader and business partner of Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon’s son-in-law. He now heads the anti-government and social media-savvy Gruppa 24. Though it appears to have little popular following at home in Tajikistan, the group of exiles has made authorities edgy in recent months.

This is the second time Quvvatov has been nabbed by a foreign government, likely at Dushanbe’s request. In December 2012 he was arrested in Dubai on accusations of mass fraud raised by the Rakhmon regime before being released without explanation in September 2013. Quvvatov calls the charges politically motivated.

Quvvatov has applied for asylum in Turkey. Nadejda Atayeva, France-based leader of the Association for Human Rights in Central Asia, has called on Ankara to respect the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (CRSR). Steve Swerdlow of Human Rights Watch told EurasiaNet.org that HRW “is closely following the situation.”

A mysterious explosion on a pipeline in Turkey just before the Georgia-Russia war broke out in 2008 may have been a Russian cyberattack, a new investigation argues, citing United States intelligence officials.

According to the investigation, by Bloomberg, the explosion on August 5, 2008, at Refahiye in eastern Turkey, was the result of a hack on the computers managing the pipeline. Surveillance footage captured two men in "black military-style uniforms without insignias, similar to the garb worn by special forces troops," shortly before the explosion. Software planted in the pipeline system shut down alarms and raised the pressure in the pipeline to such a high level that it exploded, four western intelligence officials told the agency.

The connection to Russia is solely circumstantial. "U.S. intelligence agencies believe the Russian government was behind the Refahiye explosion, according to two of the people briefed on the investigation. The evidence is circumstantial, they said, based on the possible motive and the level of sophistication."

Russia certainly has the means to carry out such an attack, as well as the motive. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, carrying oil from the Caspian Sea to Turkey's Mediterranean coast, was the greatest geopolitical victory by the U.S. in post-Cold War Eurasia, breaking Russia's monopoly on energy exports from the Caspian. And U.S. intelligence officials appear to be thinking that way:

The chief suspect, according to U.S. intelligence officials, is Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signs the book at the mausoleum of the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. (photo: kremlin.ru)

Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Turkey and its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on Monday. And while the two are often seen as having much in common -- perhaps the two world leaders making the most ambitious efforts to challenge the global dominance of the West -- Putin's Ankara visit illustrated how far apart the two countries still remain.

The visit was especially intriguing since Putin, in the wake of the crisis over Ukraine and the collapse in relations with Europe and the United States, is eagerly seeking non-Western allies. And Erdogan, too, has flirted with his own turns to the East.

In an interview with Turkish state news agency Anadolu ahead of his visit, Putin alluded to that coalition-of-the-unwilling affinity: "We highly value independent decisions by Turkey, including on economic cooperation with Russia," he said, in a clear reference to Western sanctions which Turkey has not joined. "Our Turkish partners refused to sacrifice their interests for somebody else's political ambitions. I consider that to be a really well-weighed and far‑sighted policy."

But unlike Putin's recent visit to China, where his hosts at least pretended to treat Putin like an ally, in Turkey his visit was greeted by protesters, and Erdogan publicly criticized Russia's position on Syria and on the Crimean Tatars.

Footballers for Galatasaray, the legendary Turkish club, may soon be wearing the name of Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana, across their chests. Kazakhstan’s sovereign-wealth fund, Samruk-Kazyna, is rumored to be close to signing a five-year, $50 million deal to sponsor Galatasaray, Turkish media has reported.

Samruk-Kazyna is the main source of funding for the Astana Presidential Sports Club. Astana was already affiliated with the Istanbul-based team after the two signed a cooperation agreement in April. It is unclear if the jerseys will be marked “Astana” or “Samruk-Kazyna.”

Team Astana, founded in 2012, has had a good year. In cycling, the team’s Vincenzo Nibali won the Tour de France. Figure skater Denis Ten, who receives funding from Samruk-Kazyna, won bronze for Kazakhstan at the Sochi Winter Olympics. And Samruk-Kazyna-funded middleweight boxer Gennady Golovkin successfully defended his world champion title in October.

The wins are part of President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s relentless effort to promote the capital city he founded in 1997, and Kazakhstan more generally, on the world stage. Senior officials are actively engaged in the effort. National Bank Chairman Kairat Kelimbetov, for example, is president of the Cycling Association funded by Samruk-Kazyna.